Engaging Teachers: Annie O’Sullivan
In our quest to search the nation for teachers whose students find their classes extremely engaging (engagement being where students find the work challenging and love the work they find so challenging), our next stop is The Pomfret School, a boarding school in Connecticut. Pomfret describes itself as “both bold and practical in our approach.” This description is perfect for Annie O’Sullivan. She is bold in her commitment to environmental science and sustainability. She is practical in assisting students learning about sustainable dairy farming or shrimp breeding or teaching her JV girls to dig out the puck on the hockey rink.
As is the case with all highly engaging teachers, she cares about her students and upholds high standards. Please join us in our conversation with Annie.
Rob: How long have you been at Pomfret and has your role changed during your time there?
Annie: I've been at Pomfret for ten years. I came in as a biology teacher teaching a little bit of environmental science, and now I teach solely environmental science sustainability courses. I'm also the director of sustainability.
Rob: What do you do as director of sustainability?
Annie: I do lots of tiny things. I’m focused on behavioral change, guiding the The Green Griffin's, who are trying to get students to use their reusable cups and educate on recycling, that sort of thing. It's also meeting with some of the folks who run our school, pushing forward energy sustainability measures, working to get our solar field in place and asking questions.
Rob: I notice you oversee independent studies as well: dairy farming, shrimp breeding.
Annie: We do have a certificate program. It is a neat opportunity for students to go really deep on some sort of independent study. There was a student who was fascinated by shrimp breeding. In the sustainability track, there was a student who had done a bunch of research on diving in these neat corals and assessing their health. And they asked if I could help put it together into a larger project. And then there was a neat project last year where we've been working on composting at the school. We’ve had some roadblocks with that. A student came up with the idea to have a grant application where we start by educating the faculty and having a grant where faculty who are interested could apply and get a compost bin, a tumbler for their backyard. So, they were reducing their food waste and teaching their advisees and their own kids about it.
Rob: What kind of roadblocks did you encounter?
Annie: Financial ones. We want to have these cool industrial on-site compost machines, but they're expensive. And folks asked, “where does the dirt go?” and “who's going to oversee checking the contamination? It’s more work. Who is going to do it?” It means sometimes we work hard on one specific project for a while, and then it's just like, never mind, that's not going to happen.
Rob: What led you to teaching?
Annie: I'm sure a lot of people say that they have many family members who are teachers, and that's true for me. But I didn’t think I wanted to become a teacher. I was graduating from college, I was kind of freaking out about what to do, and I knew that I loved being in a small community, and I loved being involved in sports, and I loved just knowing everyone in an academic setting. I also knew that I had a terrible fear of public speaking. I thought, “I think I should try one of these teaching internship programs at a prep school.” My eldest sister had done that for two years. It just seemed like a way either to know my fear is a deeply ingrained thing, and I'm never going to get over it, or it would be a cool experience. I did not think it was what I was going to do, but I just totally fell in love with it.
I did an internship at Emma Willard, and it was a phenomenal experience. After a year, I told them I wasn't interested in coming back because I wanted to do a bunch of other things. And as soon as I started an office job, I knew I had to get back to the classroom as quickly as possible.
Next, I worked in Sun Valley in Idaho. I ended up deciding that I needed to go to grad school to make the transition back into the teaching world. So I went to the Yale School of Forestry, which has a forest that's 20 minutes away from here , which led me to Pomfret.
Rob: Do you make use of that forest? Are your classes in classrooms most of the time?
Annie: In the fall, we make use of our campus pretty much every day. I had the insight that every class should be outside. The theme of my fall class is forest ecology. We used to always be inside learning all these specific concepts, and then go outside for a small portion of class. I realized that was not using this resource in the best possible way.
Our forest is an amazing resource. It's very underutilized, so I just try and get the students out into the forest when I can.
Rob: Why do you think students find your classes engaging?
Annie: I'm teaching about really tangible current things that they're seeing on their TikTok feeds all the time, things their families are talking about, that they're experiencing. When I was teaching out West, we learned about forest fires. A student remembered when this plot we were studying burned in 2013 when he was a little kid. So, it's applicable more than in other classes. Also, I'm passionate about the work. And just being able to go and experience so much of it, to hop in the van and drive to the local state forest or to the Audubon center or the timber mill or the farm. There's a lot of places where we're able to see these things in a hands on way. And kids love being able to go do that. And I think I just bring a lot of energy to class with that passion. Kids are going to be more engaged when the teacher is passionate and energetic.
Rob: Tell me more about your teaching philosophy.
Annie: I would add two things to what I’ve already said. One is just the relationship building that I do with my students. Again, I have an advantage being in a boarding school in that I'm able to have them in the dorm and have them on my team. So, by the time I have students their senior year, I often already know them well. I'm really committed to knowing every single kid in my class and making sure they think I care about them, building that classroom culture so they care about each other. It just helps in the classroom so, so much in terms of having those vulnerable moments asking real questions. And then the other piece: My personal role model right now is Robin Wall Kimmerer. In her book, she talks a lot about, early in her career, just wanting to get all the facts and stats and teach the kids every little thing about the genus of plants and, do you know exactly how the pollination system of this works? And she had this realization: “Shut up and let the land do the teaching.” And it might seem kind of hippie dippy. But yesterday in class, we had our first sit spots of the spring where we go down to the stream in our woods. And the kids just sat there and didn’t say anything. They had some guiding questions to lead them through these observations. This great blue heron was startled by our arrival and flew through the woods in a place that you would not really expect a great blue heron to be. Kimmerer’s philosophy is essentially that our job is just to lead them to have open ears and open eyes and to let the woods do the teaching. I’ve brought that much more into my teaching.
Rob: What is your favorite thing to teach? And I want you to be very specific. You wake up on some day during the year and you say, oh, I get to do this one!
Annie: I think that my very, very favorite is running the UN climate mock negotiation. The students are assigned to different countries or blocs of countries, and they don't really need to know anything. They just have a little handout, but it is at the end of the climate unit. So, it's about finding solutions. What I really like about it is there's this model that lives up on the projector where you can input what the countries are agreeing to, like we will peak our emissions by this year and we will start reducing them by that year. We'll reduce them at this rate and then they can go around and negotiate with the other countries. For instance, China only is reducing by 2% and America is doing 2.5%. And that’s an issue and it's very chaotic and everyone's screaming at each other. And rarely are we successful in saving the world. It's not like what real delegates are actually doing, but it's giving them that taste of what those folks are trying to accomplish while keeping their nations happy. It's a great culminating experience. And it feels a little bit real.
Rob: So, I'm just so fascinated about the notion that that one of the concerns about teaching this is that you can't just terrify the kids. But on the other hand, this is urgent, right?
Annie: At first, they don’t know very much. And most of them don't care at all. You kind of have to shake them a little bit--this is serious! And at the same time, you can’t shake them too much. And then we look at actions we can take to help solve things.
Rob: How do you ensure that your students are challenged?
Annie: I don't want to give them busy work, but I'm also trying to build foundations at the start. So sometimes, I don't think things are super challenging in the beginning. And then I hit them with really challenging pieces. They write this forestry management plan that's assessing the state of the forest, the health of the forest, the history of the forest, has recommendations for the landowner. It's based on what a real-life land management plan would look like. And that's a really challenging piece for them. But when, earlier, I asked what a sugar maple leaf looks like, that's not super challenging. So maybe I'm luring them in a little bit, making them feel comfortable that they know they can do some of these things. But then, if they're seniors in an advanced science class, they are fully capable of these larger, more challenging assignments.
Rob: Are you aware of your engagement data and do you make any use of it?
Annie: I'm definitely aware of the data. Our Head of Teaching and Learning makes sure I am. Well, she obviously shares it with all of us. And so, then I’m opening it up and checking it out so I can see what I’m doing.
Rob: What obstacles keep you from doing your best work?
Annie: There are tiny obstacles that I always face at this time of year. The seniors have gotten into college, so I must figure out how to keep them engaged. Usually that just involves taking them outside as much as possible. Another obstacle is that I know that I can get kids to care a lot about climate change and about the state of the world, if I can get them in the door. But sometimes students think “I would never take an environmental science class. That's for people of a completely different political leaning than what I'm interested in.” That's disappointing. Sometimes just getting people into the door of that classroom is the biggest obstacle.
Rob: What makes you hopeful about education?
Annie: I am super hopeful about education. Being around kids gives you a lot of hope because it's so fun. I think I'm worried about how hard our job is and how much easier some other jobs are. So, I think I'm nervous about how you get new teachers in the door. If you could get people in the door and show them how much fun this kind of job could be in the way that you can connect with kids, they’d see how motivating and satisfying it could be to be in this profession. They'll love it and they'll do it. But I guess that's something I'm a little nervous about.
Rob: I'd like you to talk about your coaching. How is coaching different or the same from your teaching?
Annie: I coach JV women's hockey. And now I've really made a big step up to the varsity tennis girls tennis team.
The coaching helps with all that relationship building, so that's wonderful. I approach coaching and teaching similarly. Something I've taken from the past two years is how I can make class more like practice. Because in hockey practice, if you run a drill where there's 25 girls on the ice and one girl is doing one thing, and 24 girls are like sitting there doing nothing, standing in the line, that's a bad drill. And in class people are always doing that because just one person's talking and everyone's kind of waiting for their turn. So how can you have so many more little conversations running at the same time? That has been very helpful to reflect on in teaching practices. Coaching is a lot of work, and it is so much fun. It's wonderful to see all the failures that happen in a sport. We struggle to allow it to happen in a classroom. What we learn from losing is so important. What will we do next time? It's easy to implement those good teaching practices on the court, but it doesn't need to just like live out there. It could be brought into our classrooms much more.
Rob: Annie, Thanks you so much for sharing your thoughts. It’s been a pleasure.
Annie: Thank you. This is lovely to spend a little time reflecting and chatting.